Looking forward to seeing The Hateful Eight? Your local Irish cinema may not be showing it

Quentin Tarantino's latest movie The Hateful Eight is due to arrive in Irish cinemas on January 8th, but some of the major chains around the country won't be showing the movie.

Both Cineworld Cinemas in Dublin and IMC Cinemas with nineteen cinemas around the country, including The Savoy in Dublin, and will not be showing the movie due to a dispute with the movie's distributor, Entertainment Film.

IMC took to Facebook to announce the film been removed from their schedule: “Once again Entertainment Film (@EFDFilms on Twitter) will not supply IMC Cinemas with their latest film - Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight - be sure to let them know how much this disappoints you if you wanted to see it!!”

Cineworld have been reporting to their followers on Facebook who were expressing disappointment that the movie is no longer on their upcoming timetable: "[...] unfortunately we haven’t been able to come to an agreement with the movie’s distributor which means The Hateful Eight won’t be shown at Cineworld."

Entertainment Film, who are distributing the movie in the UK and Ireland, released an official statement:

"Cineworld had made us aware that they were very unhappy that The Hateful Eight had been booked into the Odeon Leicester Square for an exclusive 70mm Ultra Panavision presentation, and specifically that they would therefore not be able to play the film at their Picturehouse Central venue. Due to the special facilities required for the unique 70mm Ultra Panavision presentation we needed the largest theater and screen possible in the West End and the Odeon Leicester Square was the natural choice. The technical elements and costs involved with this special presentation meant that this would need to be the exclusive West End venue. The Odeon Leicester Square seats 1,680 and Picturehouse Central only seats 344 so clearly this was not a viable alternative.

Cineworld had every opportunity to book the film in their other cinemas across the country on the same basis as other exhibitors and declined to do so. This is despite the fact that there is no dispute over the financial terms for this release.

We feel very sorry for Cineworld’s customers and in particular their Unlimited cardholders who will be denied the chance to see the film at a Cineworld cinema using their Unlimited card - a result of this Picturehouse issue relating to a single London West End cinema. As far as the general release is concerned we will be booking more sites with other exhibitors to compensate for Cineworld’s lack of support for a film that has already been given 5 stars and declared as Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece by The Guardian.

If Cineworld change their mind by tomorrow morning and decide to book the film in the proper way along the lines of the other exhibitors we would be happy for them to do so."

UPDATED at 19.45:

It looks like IMC Cinemas have worked out their disagreement with Entertainment Film, as their Twitter feed announced this evening:

IMC are delighted to announce the Hateful Eight will be playing in 13 IMC Cinemas throughout the island of Ireland from Friday!